


Home, Heart, Where, Is

by Brighid



Series: Choices [2]
Category: Smallville
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-31
Updated: 2013-03-31
Packaged: 2017-12-07 02:25:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/743094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brighid/pseuds/Brighid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex finds Clark at home, and other variations of that sentence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home, Heart, Where, Is

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Destina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destina/gifts).



> Stream-of-consciousness lj sequel to "Deepest and Hardest"

Hmmm. Sleepy-eyed and heavy limbed, and yet here he is, climbing stairs because he's seen the soft, buttery glow on the drive home (the long way home, admit that, to yourself if no one else). The barn is still, almost quiet, as quiet as a farm can be when there are drowsing cattle in the distance, wind in fields, the creak and settle of old buildings.

Lex doesn't say anything at all, doesn't want to disturb ... whatever this is, whatever it might become ... what's settled over him. He's never been prone to stillness, not truly. His stillness has always been coiled, poised to strike. This is something else entirely.

Clark is sprawled on the couch, reading quietly, an elderly blanket pulled over him haphazardly. He's wearing an old, thin T-shirt, more than half-outgrown, and sweats. His feet are bare, and they flex slightly with each breath, each pulse, almost kneading the couch arm they are braced against. Clark looks up at his footfall, and his eyes are shadowed, a bit, but not so darkly, not so deeply as a few days before. Lex can see the sorrow and the fear overlayed with hope, and he knows that he has given the gift of that hope, and it makes something inside him, something taut and always just a little angry, ease.

"Hey," and Clark slides his feet back, makes room. Lex crosses over, sits down, smiles slightly when Clark pushes his toes under his thighs, just a bit, resettles the blanket to cover them both. They sit like that: in silence, in gold lamplight, in peace, for a very long time.

"The surgery is tomorrow," Clark says at last, but his voice doesn't break the silence, just blends in, twines through it, like a cat winding warm and sweet between legs it loves. Lex turns, and to his surprise Clark's face is wet, his eyes shining. Without thought he reaches out, traces a silvered streak, brings the salt and sweetness of it back to his tongue. And then they are both leaning in, and he tastes all the sweetness, all the salt, opens Clark wide and tastes so deeply he might never lose the memory of it, no matter what time and fate might bring.

Later, a tangle of limbs and salt and sweetness beneath the blanket, Lex licks away the sweat, the tears that have never entirely stopped. "He's going to be all right," he says. "Don't be scared," he says. "I love you," he does not say, but Clark licks his lips, gently, breathes over the shell of his ear, and says it for both of them.

"Because you're here," Clark says. "You're here," he says again, pulling Lex's hand against his chest, to the slight, subtle dip of his sternum.

ah, thinks Lex, suddenly understanding what this was, what this had been from the moment he'd seen the light from the road. He is torn between wanting to laugh and cry that he can only now recognize it, that it had been so long since he had last known it.

This was coming home.

)0(

Home Again, Home Again


End file.
